#Jesus

I didn’t watch The Sound of Music on Thursday night because I’ve never seen the movie (and have zero interest in it) and Scandal was on. Not that I couldn’t have been persuaded to PVR it, but Carrie Underwood and Stephen Moyer aren’t high priority for me. But of course I read the tweets and some of the reviews; my favourite was from Deadline: “And, as an actress, American Idol alum Underwood is an enormously talented singer.”

Musicals are hard, classics are hard, live TV is hard and in the age of live tweeting, some snark was expected. Anyone who took the lead in this was going to feel some heat. The production was a risk and it paid off with monster ratings for NBC – a win that ensures it will be a go-to holiday program for years to come. And it generated a huge amount of attention on Twitter, an increasingly important measure of the success of a TV show or special.

Clearly Carrie Underwood was aware of the Twitter buzz, because she found time to retweet a few compliments and well-wishes from celebrities like Cameron Diaz and Leann Rimes, plus get a dig in at anyone who criticized her.

“Plain and simple: Mean people need Jesus. They will be in my prayers tonight… 1 Peter 2:1-25.”

(Seven years of catechism and I have no idea how to read bible numbers.)

First off, she just set herself up for about a million, “and you need acting lessons” responses. Second, if you were mean but are atheist, agnostic, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh… I guess you are off the hook. Her condescension – remember, this is the same person who said that she has no respect for celebrities who back a political candidate – is palpable. It’s not that Carrie is tweeting about her beliefs or her faith, it’s that she’s telling people who didn’t like her performance in a musical that they need to get right with God – HER god. Then she prays for them.

If you are going to take on an iconic character, toughen up and take the stick out of your ass. Many of the tweets were jokes, some were constructive criticism and, yes, some of them were probably just mean. So what? If she wanted to defend her work, that is understandable, but that’s not what she did. She stomped her feet and said that anyone who doesn’t like her is mean/not spiritual/in need of her divine prayers and intervention.

Jesus doesn’t have time for your haters, Carrie. He’s super busy with Grammy nominations and athletes.